Ladies in Disguise

Ladies in Disguise
by Lostalley

Lingering Russian Romanticism of Glazunov’s “Concert of Waltz No. 1” carried me to another composer of the same genre. Out of the Five (Russian Romantic School originators——Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Borodin), Mussorgsky is the least favorite, to me, for his pumped, clumsy and over-nationalistic composing traits with one exception. His “Pictures at an Exhibition”, if heard in the right mood and setting, can stir up potent and poetic emotions, like an abstract painting in the eye of a renaissance connoisseur, occasionally. Mother Russia, an endearment for her Euro-Asia land mass spanning from the Baltic to Pacific, may help nurture an expansive, profound, and melancholy soul embodied in Russian music. In Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, I seem to detect a streak of Asian flair, which reminds me of a Chinese artist friend who loves art of Romanov Dynasty. Years ago, I wrote a critique on his avant-garde paintings, and I share it with my friends here. 

Bethesda, Maryland

 

                                          

 

             

 

 

                                              Ladies in Disguise 
                                                    By Lostalley,  August, 2000

For the last 15 years, China has experienced tremendous social changes unprecedented in its modern history. This drastic transformation has ignited an explosion of artistic expression by a new generation of avant-garde young artists such as Lu Xin. Recognized as one of the best contemporary Chinese painters, Lu uses his fantastic imagination and superb technique to depict a morally ambiguous environment in which he lives with a penchant for Chinese women. 

Sentimental Song

In “Sentimental Song” (60”x 31.5”, oil on canvas), a young Chinese girl in a western style dress plays a mandolin-like medieval instrument for an audience of pigs with human faces, with a dead horse hung in the background. The viewer, struck by such an eerie and almost haunting scene, cannot help but notice such an odd mixture of seemingly so inharmonious objects. For Lu, the girl with a mandolin symbolizes the remaining romantic idealists including the artist himself, whose spiritual songs fall onto the deaf ears of materialistic and hedonistic masses. Therefore, in this highly individualistic approach, Lu finds a most fitting way to express his complex emotion for China in which he witnesses a painful process of ongoing interactions between hope and despair. 

Red Pancake with a White Onion

In a way, “Red Pancake with a White Onion” (60”x 31.5”, oil on canvas) tells a similar theme from another angle. A voluptuous nude, surrounded by demonic creatures with animal heads in medieval robes, absent-mindedly meditates. The viewer is tempted to think of a seductive dinner in which the devoured and the devourer seem to be easily identified. However, as Lu laments, “in today’s China, those waiting to be eaten and those waiting to eat are interchangeable. The eater today may well be the eaten tomorrow”. The meditating nude may contemplate slaughtering the seduced guests. Who knows?

Elegance

Lu’s obsession with women sometimes reveals an intriguing aspect of his psychological as well as philosophical posture. In “Elegance” (60” x 31.5”, oil on canvas), the viewer may detect a hidden but traceable feminism. With heavy symbolism, Lu displays a languishing nude wearing a traditional Chinese silk shoe and a monkey perching on a sensitive vicinity of her erotic body. An ancient symbol as a versatile sexual provocateur, the tiny monkey seems to be readily at his gigantic master’s disposal with the peaches, monkey’s favorite food, used either as incentive or as reward.  It may not be so far-fetched that Lu’s “Elegance” is meant to be a satirical metaphor of sexual relations in contemporary China. After 50 years of Communist indoctrination and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in particular, in Lu’s eye, Chinese women, often perceived by the West as docile and obedient to men, are sometimes ruthless predators disguised as an attractive prey. In today’s still male-dominated China, Lu’s women are mysterious creatures of both conquest and rebellion.

In his paintings, Lu’s heroines are used not only as a vehicle to convey the emancipation of sexuality, but also as an embodiment of moral promiscuity so evident in current China.  By brilliantly portraying juxtaposition of old and new, right and wrong, East and West, Lu masterfully creates a unique caricature so acutely and vividly reminiscent of China at the end of the millennium.